In the Civil War (1861 to 1865) eleven Southern states seceded from the U.S. and formed the Confederate States of America.
The Civil War had more casualties than any other American war. Disease and infection were the biggest killers.
Sarah Elizabeth Freestone Brinson was born on June 4, 1841 in Madison, Indiana. Her parents were Zachariah Freestone and Mariah Jane McCarty.
She married David A. Brinson. David was born in 1839 in Ripley Indiana. His parents were John Brinson and Elizabeth Wade. John and Elizabeth Brinson were charter members of the First Christian Church in Winterset in 1853.
David enlisted on August 21, 1862 as a private in Company F of the 4th Iowa Infantry. He died of disease at Young’s Point, Louisiana on February 7, 1863.
On October 21, 1866 she married John H. Long. Their children and life together are described in detail in the section on John and Sarah Long.
Nebraska was not settled by many European-Americans until 1848. In the 1860s, the government took Native American land and opened it for homesteaders. Nebraska became the 37th state on March 1, 1867,
